Cyclone Gabrielle: Concerns for safety after withdrawal of support for Mangaone River crossing

Dartmoor resident Sarah Grant crosses the Mangaone River without volunteer support after it was withdrawn on Friday with little community notice. Photo / Ian Cooper

Members of the Dartmoor community have taken four-hour detours or undertaken risky swims across the Mangaone River to get to town after support at a crucial river crossing was suddenly withdrawn.

The Dartmoor community has relied on a boat and pulley system to get across the Mangaone River, where a bridge previously stood before the cyclone, which allows them to reach Napier in about 30 minutes.

Volunteer group Taskforce Kiwi was supporting the river crossings but withdrew on Friday.

Dartmoor resident Sarah Grant said communication from civil defence had been poor and the community was not warned or adequately prepared after the volunteers departed.

“Friday morning I had a community member who was down at the river ring me and ask why there is no help because they needed help to get a load of things across the river, and I had no idea,” Grant said.

She went to cross herself on Friday afternoon to pick up her children from school but she and other residents had to right the boat after finding it flipped over in the wind and were not comfortable crossing.

She decided to drive an alternative four-hour round trip to town instead for the children’s safety.

“I was not comfortable to cross, it felt to me that it was too risky without assistance or any professionals there to make that judgment.”

A Hawke’s Bay Civil Defence Emergency Management Group spokeswoman said communications with the community go through the Community Hub co-ordinator, a community member who disseminates the information.

Grant said she is the community member involved with communications for the Community Hub, but she was left in the dark just as much as everyone else on the river-crossing changes.

Grant said some residents were capable of making the crossing in normal conditions, but they needed proper support for the safety of everyone. Photo / Ian Cooper

The HBCDEM spokeswoman said community members were trained in water safety, provided with the necessary equipment, and provided access to river gauge warnings to help them make safe decisions about whether or not to cross ahead in preparation for the withdrawal.

Grant said that while community members were offered safety training from Mohaka Rafting for the crossing a week ago, no one was informed it was to prepare for the crossing to be community-led.

“It is a major failure of communication really,” she said.

She said that while there were a few in the community, including herself, who were capable of operating the boat in normal conditions, there were also several community members transiting the river who were not capable of taking themselves across.

“One person had to swim across the river because the last person hadn’t put it on the pulley correctly,” she said.

The HBCDEM spokeswoman said that they were advised on Friday morning that community members had experienced issues in trying to cross the river, as all of the trained community members had already gone to work.

The spokeswoman said the New Zealand Defence Force and New Zealand Urban Search and Rescue were deployed on Friday to support the community with river crossings for the rest of that day.

“We are developing a new plan to continue to support the community with river crossings until the footbridge is installed in the next seven to 10 days,” the spokeswoman said